A , Mandan , man who served in the Korean War has been awarded an honorary high school diploma.
Frank Kraft, 96, was recognized under a , North Dakota , law that allows soldiers of World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War to apply for honorable certifications if they went into the company before graduating from high school and were respectfully discharged, according to status School Superintendent , Kirsten Baesler.
Kraft was drafted into the , US Army , in , February 1951, after he finished ninth grade at the , Selfridge , public university. According to his company history, he served as a reservoir mechanic before being discharged two years later.
During his Army education, Kraft was stationed at Fort Worden and Fort Flagler in , Washington state , and at , Camp Desert Rock, a , Nevada , atomic testing site about 65 miles northeast of , Las Vegas. He” told us he arrived after one exam and left before the next one”, said his child,  , Sheila Rothstein, of , Dickinson.
After taking container repair training in , Tokyo , and , Seoul, Kraft was posted to the Korean war area, where he spent a month as a reservoir mechanic, including time about 3 miles north of the front lines. He worked largely on M46 Patton vehicles. When Kraft eventually discovered a bullet hole in his helmet, he afterward discovered it atop a tank he was working on.
After his Army release, Kraft returned to , North Dakota, where he was a building contractor, builder and carpenter in , North Dakota , and , South Dakota , for most of his working career. He even did farm job, had a work at a , Mandan , factory and repaired microphones, his daughter said.
Another , North Dakota , senior,  , Clayton Bertsch, 87, of , Ypsilanti, even received an honorary high school diploma. The student of the ninth degree from a remote class near Danzig enlisted in the , Navy , in , September 1954 , and served for four decades, including moment as a pipefitter on the battleship USS Brown. After his company he trained to become a locksmith and got a career as a handyman at the , North Dakota State Hospital , in , Jamestown, where he worked for 54 times.
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